Titan
by simplytrop
Summary: When Alfred joins Scouting Legion as a trainee, he didn't expect to meet Arthur Kirkland—because he saw Arthur die in front of him two years ago.


Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan crossover…kind of. You don't need to know the series to read. USUK!

* * *

"Al! Al, wake up! Arthur is going to get so mad at you for coming out here again."

Alfred was rudely jolted out of his nap by the insistent shaking. He opened his eyes to find himself staring into the near-identical face of his cousin, Matthew Williams.

"I wasn't asleep, Matt," he said. It wasn't a complete lie either. He'd been dreaming again—dreaming that he was an adult in charge of a lot of people and building a giant ship that would go to the moon—however ridiculous that was.

"Yes you were," Matthew said. "You know kids aren't allowed out here—"

"I'm fourteen—not ten," Alfred said.

"That's still a—"

"And this is still inside the wall anyway—"

"We're too far from the city and you know just because we're in the Wall, doesn't mean there aren't still criminals—"

"And you came to get me so that means you're not supposed to be here either," Alfred finished, triumphant. As curious as Alfred was about what lay outside the Wall, he wasn't stupid enough to try going there—not that he'd ever be allowed. They were just on a grassy plain that overlooked the nearest town and several of the orchards around the area.

Matthew heaved a loud sigh. "Will you just come back? Arthur said he's finished making dinner—"

Alfred groaned.

"Don't complain. You're the one always telling him you like it when he cooks," Matthew said, rolling his eyes as he helped pull Alfred to his feet.

"You know how he gets if you _don't_ say so," Alfred said, but he followed Matthew down the hill and towards the town again. "His cooking is bad enough to kill a titan. If we could convince the military to use it, I bet it could be a deadly weapon."

Over a hundred years ago, the titans had suddenly appeared. Anyone could tell you four things about the titans:

1. They looked vaguely human—albeit wrong. Their mouths were too wide, they had too many teeth, their bodies were too long for their limbs, and they had no genitalia to speak of.

2. They were huge. On average, they ranged between 3-15 meters tall so they were easily taller than most buildings not to mention people—which meant getting away from them was extremely difficult and yet important because…

3. They ate humans. Now eating a human being was foul enough. Eating a man alive was about the worst type of death Alfred could think of—fully cognizant of what was happening as someone bit off your arm and then leg, and then half your body…it didn't get much worse than that.

4. They were almost impossible to kill.

That was why the death toll had gone through the roof when the titans first appeared. No one knew what they were or how to deal with them. They were much bigger than humans and much stronger, and they had incredible powers of regeneration. Cut off one arm and it would grow right back in a few minutes. They had decimated the human population in mere weeks until humans had finally figured out its one weak point—the back of the neck. If you cut a titan in the back of the neck, it would die, unable to regenerate.

"You better not say that in front of him or you'll be going hungry for a week," Matthew said.

"And that might be better," Alfred said. "Hey, the Scouting Legion is coming back today, right? Let's go watch!"

"You know we're not supposed to," Matthew said, but he still followed Alfred into town. "Arthur will be so mad we're late for dinner."

"It's on the way home," Alfred said, rolling his eyes. "We're right next to the entrance so we'd see them anyway."

"Fine, but only a few minutes," Matthew said.

Alfred grinned at him and began sprinting down the cobble-stoned streets toward the gated entrance.

To combat the titans, humans had been forced into a walled city—or more accurately, something like a walled nation since it was far too big to be a city. There were three great walls in the human territory—the innermost was called Wall Sina, the one in the middle was Wall Rose, and the outermost and biggest wall was called Wall Maria.

Arthur, Alfred, and Matthew lived in a small town close by the edge of Wall Maria which was 50 meters tall—far taller than any titan. The small house they shared was right by the north gate where the Scouting Legion would be coming in, which was the perfect excuse to loiter and watch.

There was already a small crowd of people gathered by the gate when Alfred and Matthew arrived. Everyone wore the same, identical look of hope and worry—most of them were family and friends of the troops that had been sent out judging by the hushed conversations around them.

"Maybe they found something this time," Alfred said.

"They haven't found much any of the other times," Matthew said as they pushed their way up toward the front.

"You never know," Alfred said, watching intently.

They'd gotten there just in time for the gate to open. Alfred saw the first of the soldiers come in—some of them trudging by foot, others on horses that looked as weary as the soldiers.

Instead of the triumphant faces of heroes, they just looked gaunt and tired. One, two, then three—most of them limping. Then the carts and stretchers came carrying far more men who had lost an arm or a leg—some both—their injuries wrapped in blood-stained bandages.

One stretcher was carried past Alfred but the man on it was staring at nothing with blank, glassy eyes—dead before he'd gotten through the gates.

One old woman rushed forward when she saw the corporal trudging in on a crutch toward the back of the sad procession.

"My son—Brown—Stephen Brown—"

"Bring it here," the man said and another soldier came forward, carrying a bloodied package.

Alfred watched as the woman opened it—it was a severed hand.

"That's all we were able to recover," the man said as the woman burst into tears.

"You two!"

Alfred jumped when he heard the familiar voice right by his ear. "Hi Arthur," he said, turning to face his guardian.

Arthur Kirkland, 18 years old, was really not that much taller than Alfred since Alfred had started his growth spurt earlier that year, but he could still make Alfred feel like he was nine years old again when he glared at Alfred like that.

"Home. _Now_," Arthur said.

"We were on our way," Alfred said but began following Arthur away from the gate. "Tell him, Matt—"

"I know you talked him into it, Alfred F. Jones," Arthur said. "_How_ many times have I told you to stay away from the gate when they're opening it—"

"It's not like anything happened—"

"_This_ time," Arthur snapped. "What would you do if a titan decided to attack? Do you need me to remind you what happened to your parents?"

Both Alfred's parents and Matthew's parents—and presumably Arthur's parents too—had all died. Alfred's parents were both engineers who had helped build the walls, and they'd been working on Wall Maria when the titans attacked before the last section of it was completed. Alfred had been only nine at the time when Arthur had showed up at his door, claiming that Alfred had been assigned to him as part of the orphan care program. A few years later when Matthew's parents, both part of the Scouting Legion, had failed to return from their latest mission, Alfred had begged Arthur to take him in too.

Since then, they'd lived together in a small house by the gate. Arthur worked as a horse trainer primarily for the military though he never went outside the walls. Alfred and Matthew were both still in school until they turned sixteen, and then Alfred fully intended to join the Scouting Legion himself.

"Nothing's going to happen," Alfred said.

"And what if something does?" Arthur said as they reached the house. "Do you want to die the same way as your parents?"

"It's none of your business if I do," Alfred said, wrenching the door open and running upstairs. "You aren't my parent."

"You can stay in there all night then! No dinner!" Arthur shouted back.

"No one wants to eat your shitty cooking anyway!" Alfred reached the small bedroom he shared with Matthew and slammed the door behind him. Arthur had gotten more oppressive lately—or maybe Alfred had just gotten tired of always having to listen to him. Arthur still treated him and Matthew like they were nine, when Alfred was almost old enough to join the military.

He could hear Arthur's sigh through the thin wooden walls, and the scrape of chairs downstairs.

"Sit down and eat, Matthew," Arthur said, sounding weary. "Bring this up for Alfred later."

Alfred heard the creak of the stairs, recognizing Arthur's footsteps, but Arthur passed by Alfred's bedroom and a moment later, he heard the door to the other bedroom shut.

Alfred bit his lip. He hated it when Arthur got upset. Ever since he was young, he'd never been able to deal with it when Arthur was anything but happy. It was the worst when Arthur cried so thankfully it didn't happen often. This time, though, he'd managed to make Arthur upset enough to skip dinner, and it made Alfred feel like a tool.

"You better go apologize," Matthew said when he came in with the tray of food for Alfred. It was some sort of unrecognizable, lumpy stew, and bread that was so black it may as well be coal. It stank up the whole room with the sour smell of smoke.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Alfred said. "He's still treating us like kids."

"Compared to him, we are kids," Matthew answered. He set the tray down on the small desk he and Alfred shared. "You know he's trying."

Alfred sighed but got to his feet. He picked up the tray of food and walked down the short hallway to Arthur's room and knocked before letting himself in.

Arthur was lying down on his bed, on top of his thin bedsheets, and he turned, startled, when Alfred walked in. "What?" He sounded guarded as he sat up.

"Here," Alfred said, putting the tray down. "You didn't have dinner."

"You didn't either," Arthur said.

Alfred went and sat down on the bed next to him. "Arthur, you know I'm going to join the Scouting Legion when I turn sixteen."

"No you're not," Arthur said flatly.

"Arthur—"

"You've _seen_ how they—hardly any of them survive," Arthur snapped. "Titans are how your parents died, mine, Matthew's—I am not going to lose you to them too."

"I can find out why they're here, Arthur," Alfred said, even though by now, he knew he wasn't going to convince Arthur. This wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation and it never went anywhere. "We could have the world again."

"No," Arthur said.

"Arthur—"

"I'm tired," Arthur said and lay down again, turning his back to Alfred.

Alfred gave up. "_This_ is why no one can stand you!" he said. "I don't need your permission to join the military when I turn sixteen."

When Arthur refused to answer, Alfred stalked out, slamming the door shut behind him.

* * *

Things were still tense the next morning when Alfred and Matthew headed off to school. All kids were required to go to school at least three months of the year until they turned sixteen. Since most people living in the villages and towns along Wall Maria were farmers, kids helped their families work for most of the year—which was fine because not much was taught in school nowadays aside from maintenance of the walls and the sparse information they had about the titans.

Some time in the past, things used to be better. There used to be plenty of electricity to go around instead of the generators that always needed repairing now and would go down without any warning. There used to be giant shopping centers where people could buy all sorts of clothes that were "fashionable"—nowadays, everyone had to make their own clothes and they only came in practical colors for most people—browns, greens, whites—no one had the time to go around dying cloth anymore. There used to be things like horseless carriages—cars—that could run all by themselves. There used to be a lot more things—all sorts of technology and luxuries that they didn't have anymore thanks to the titans.

Most of the technology and even most history was lost now—too many people died, too many rapid changes to the world. The only two things that anyone ever learned about now were the walls, and 3D maneuver gear—the two defenses against the titans.

Apart from the history of the walls and the constant maintenance they needed, the other weapon against titans was the 3D maneuver gear.

"What is the 3D gear good for?" Monsieur Bonnefoy, as their teacher insisted everyone call him, asked. "Oui?" he said, looking at Alfred.

"3D gear allows humans to have mobility when we fight the titans," Alfred said.

"Exactement," Bonnefoy said. His accent was stronger than most. When titans had taken over the world, all nations and races had been mixed into this one big city-state so that for all intents and purposes, nationalities no longer existed. Nearly all the Asians had died out as far as everyone knew—the titans had appeared there first. English had become the common language of use. But the disaster had happened recently enough that many people still retained a trace of the accent of their former nations. Monsieur Francis Bonnefoy had originally belonged to a country called France and he kept a strong French accent and still used many of the words.

"Three Dimensional Maneuver Gear includes handgrips, grapple-hooks, the gas powered mechanism, and the iron wire propeller," Bonnefoy said, drawing the diagram of the parts onto a chalkboard. "They were developed by a weapons craftsman called Angel when the Scouting Legion was first formed," he lectured.

Alfred tuned out as the teacher went on. Unless they were going to let Alfred use the gear, he had very little interest in how it worked.

He found himself staring out of the window of the little schoolhouse. There were maybe two dozen or so kids total in the classroom, and out on the streets, there were adults of all sorts going about their normal business in the sunshine. From here, he could see the tall, white wall in the distance, the tiny figures of the military watch standing guard…which was why Alfred saw the first tremor.

At first, he thought he'd imagined it, but a moment later, he was sure he saw the wall shake again and all the little military figures began running toward the gate. The next time the wall shook, Alfred felt the tremor in the floorboards under him and he stood up, staring out the window.

"Monsieur Jones, take a seat, s'il vous plaît," the teacher said.

Alfred ignored him. "Something's going on at the wall…"

And then the titan showed up.

Through the window, Alfred saw, rearing up above the fifty-meter high wall, a giant titan. Its head alone was the size of a house, and as Alfred watched, one giant hand came down on the wall—grabbing a handful of soldiers who were too stunned to maneuver away.

Alfred ran out of the schoolhouse and onto the street where screams and shouts were already beginning.

"Jones, get inside!" Monsieur Bonnefoy was shouting. "Everyone _stay inside_!"

It was useless because the next tremor knocked Alfred off his feet and a loud crack echoed painfully in his ears. The gate.

"It's kicking the gate!" Alfred said as Matthew reached him, both of them staring up at the colossal titan. "It's trying to get in—"

The next kick sent a crack fissuring up the wall like it had been split by an earthquake.

"It's not going to hold," Matthew said faintly.

He was right. Already great pieces of rubble were crumbling off the wall, falling in chunks into the houses beneath.

"Arthur—" Alfred said, exchanging a horrified look with Matthew. "Is he—is he still at the house?"

"He was going to work today, wasn't he?" Matthew said.

Alfred took off running for their house, dodging screaming people as they ran, and others who just stood staring in shock at the huge titan. No one had ever seen a titan this big before. They shouldn't exist.

Alfred came into sight of the small house that was still in one piece, having miraculously survived all the rubble coming down around it. He barely had time to heave a sigh of relief when Arthur came running out of the front door.

"Arthur!" Alfred shouted and Arthur turned, a look of relief on his face—just as a third tremor hit the wall and threw them all to the ground.

Alfred heard the crack before he saw the shadow. Then a huge piece of rubble fell from the wall onto their house.

"Arthur!" Alfred shouted, scrambling to his feet, coughing as he tried to peer through the dust. "Arthur, where—"

"Alfred—"

Alfred heard Arthur's voice, weak, as the dust began to clear. He saw Arthur's dirt-stained face as he climbed over rubble to get to the house. "Thank god, you're okay…"

The situation was bad. Arthur was alive, but he had been caught in the rubble and half of his body was stuck under the wooden beams of the house.

"Don't worry, I'll get you out," Alfred said, looking around. People streamed past them—some injured, others crying. No one took a second look at Arthur or Alfred, and in a few moments, the street was deserted.

He grabbed a hold of the beam trapping Arthur in place and heaved. It didn't budge. The pieces of wall keeping Arthur in place were too heavy.

"Matt, help me," Alfred said, grunting as he tried to push the beam away, but Matthew didn't come help, staring at something over Alfred's shoulder.

"I'll be fine," Arthur said. "I…"

Alfred stopped when he heard the odd tone of Arthur's voice and then he saw the look of horror on his face. He knew before he turned around what Arthur had seen. A titan, maybe eight meters tall, was slowly lumbering toward them, a wide, toothy grin stretched across its face.

The wall had been breached.

"Run," Arthur said, his voice quiet.

Alfred ignored him, pushing up as hard as he could. He could feel the splinters digging into his shoulder and palms, but he had to get Arthur out.

"I can't get out. _Leave!_" Arthur said louder.

Alfred glanced behind him at the titan and pushed harder. "I'm not going to leave—"

"Alfred, just go! I'll—"

"I'm not leaving! I'll get you out," Alfred said and tried to push harder. He cursed himself for not being bigger and stronger.

"Matthew, take him and leave!"

Alfred noticed too late that Matthew had come up right behind him. "Get off me!" he shouted, fighting to get Arthur free.

Matthew ignored him, dragging Alfred away as much as Alfred was struggling to stay.

"Get the fuck off—"

A fourth tremor knocked them flat to the ground again, and more screams echoed around them just barely louder than the thundering rumble as more pieces of wall came down.

When Alfred had stopped coughing and the dust cleared, he saw that their entire house—Arthur and all—had been buried beneath the rubble. The smaller titan that had been coming toward them had also been buried.

"Arthur…" Alfred said, looking for any sign that he might still be alive.

"Alfred?"

He didn't look up until Matthew touched his shoulder, voice shaking. When Alfred looked up, he saw that in the big gap in the wall, he could see the lush green forests in the distance—and coming toward them, out of the trees, were hundreds of titans.

Alfred got to his feet, pulling Matthew up with him. Arthur was dead but he wouldn't let Matthew die too.

"Run."

* * *

Alfred had no recollection of how they got away from the fallen Wall Maria and into Wall Rose. He and Matthew were huddled together—one of the lucky few to get inside quickly, but within Wall Rose, the panic was possibly worse than it was outside. People were pouring in from all the gates and everywhere Alfred looked, he saw the hopeless, lost faces of people who had lost friends and family beyond the wall.

There were too many people and not enough food and supplies inside, and Alfred couldn't think about anything but Arthur.

Oddly, the thing he kept remembering was the awful burnt stew Arthur had made the night before that had filled the whole house with its fumes. Just a day ago, Alfred would give anything to never have to eat Arthur's horrible cooking again. Now all he wanted was to taste that acrid stew and burnt bread.

"I never ate it," he said.

"What?" Matthew said wanly where he sat beside Alfred, huddled in a thin blanket. They hadn't been granted living quarters yet.

"Dinner," Alfred said. "Yesterday."

Matthew didn't say anything.

By the water gates, more people were still coming in by boat, many of them injured. The soldiers and government officials standing by were looking progressively more worried, and some of them annoyed.

"We can't keep taking in more people," Alfred heard one official say. "We're already running low on supplies and if we can't leave Wall Rose…"

"We'll figure something out," a soldier said. "We're not turning away anyone who needs help."

Another boatload of people—mostly women and children—got off.

"I'm going to kill them," Alfred said.

"What?" Matthew murmured.

"Titans," Alfred said. "I'm going to kill every last one of them."

* * *

**Two Years Later…**

* * *

Alfred straightened his uniform and surveyed himself in the mirror, grinning as Matthew elbowed him out of the way to run his hands through his wavy hair.

"Ready to go sign up?" Alfred asked and ruffled Matthew's hair, ruining his attempts to straighten it again.

Matthew glared at him, pulling his glasses off to polish them. "Not as ready as you are," he said.

No matter how much Alfred had tried to work his way into the corps, he'd been forced to wait until he turned sixteen. Things had changed since then. Now, there was constant pressure for people to sign up for the military—the reason being they needed to retake Wall Maria. Since the wall had been breached, it had been past overcrowded inside Wall Rose and Wall Sina, and a few times, the government had even sent out the poorest people to "forage for supplies." They nearly all died once they were forced out into titan territory.

A draft had also been enforced, enlisting all men and women who turned sixteen and did not already have a family business to enter. In this case, it meant that nearly all the refugees that had poured into Wall Rose when Wall Maria came down were forced into the military—most of them to become troops attempting to forage supplies from the abandoned cities and towns outside.

Alfred and Matthew had intended to join the military from the start, so they were one of the few who were excited to show up on orientation day.

"Not too many people look happy," Alfred said as they walked into the training camp where they'd been told to report.

"Most people aren't here by choice," Matthew said.

There were various camps set up within Wall Rose to train new recruits. Their camp consisted of what looked like a random clearing in the middle of a forest, a series of cabins, a small office, and a storeroom.

"We're in Cabin 5," Matthew said as they walked around the camp ground, looking for the cabin they'd be living in for the next three years. Each of the small wooden cabins held a series of twelve bunks, and they'd been provided with pillows and sheets.

"I claim top bunk!" Alfred said, tossing his small rucksack onto the top mattress of a bunk near the back.

Matthew rolled his eyes but set his things down on the one beneath Alfred's bed.

There were already a few others in the room. There was a heavyset dark-skinned man with his hair braided back.

"You two twins or something?" he said when he caught Alfred looking at him.

"Aren't you too old to get drafted?" Alfred answered.

The man glared at him. "I'm seventeen!" he said.

"He just meant you look…mature," Matthew said quickly. "I'm Matthew Williams, this is my cousin, Alfred."

The man looked disgruntled but shook Matthew's extended hand. "Juan Machado," he said.

Alfred had noticed someone much more interesting, though. "Hey, you're an Asian!" he said, startling a small, slim boy who was at least a head shorter than Alfred.

"Ah, I am Kiku Honda," the boy said and gave Alfred a quick bow. "It is a pleasure to meet you."

"We don't see too many Asians around," Alfred said, and then introduced himself and Matthew.

By the time they were all gathered out on the field for orientation, Alfred had also met Feliciano and Lovino Vargas, Bella Peeters, Ali Hasanov, Elsa Gruber, and Ludwig—a tall, Germanic-looking man who had been found abandoned as a child and had no surname. Some of them, like Bella, wanted to be there. Others, like Feliciano, had absolutely no desire to fight but had been drafted in.

There were a hundred or so new recruits total who lined up on the field, and then the oddest looking man Alfred had ever seen came out of the office. While he didn't look old, the man's hair was completely white as was his skin, and his eyes were an unnatural pink shade.

"Listen up, you fuckers, I'm Commander Gilbert Beilschmidt, in charge of teaching you how not to die," he barked out. "Those of you who were recruited—you better listen up and learn good or you _will_ die. Those of you who volunteered—are you fucking retarded? You got a death wish?"

The albino commander strode in between the ranks, yelling as he went. "Those of you who even make it through training all the way will get to choose one of three placements—the Scouting Legion, the Stationary Guard, or the Military Police. 'course only the top ten ranking soldiers here'll even have the choice of being Military Police."

"Now let's weed out the weak!" the commander said. "Give me thirty laps around the camp—no dinner until you've completed them!"

Alfred took off jogging as all the new recruits formed a line to run around the compound.

By the time night fell, twenty new recruits had been disgraced for being unable to run. They would be given the most menial jobs in the camp, and no one had any doubt that the next time they needed troops to go "foraging," they would be at the top of the list.

Alfred was pleased to see he was one of the better rookies. Ludwig was also quite good, as was Kiku. The Vargas brothers, on the other hand, surprised everyone when they complained their way through the first lap until they were dead last, and sprinted their way to the front of the group when the commander threatened they'd go hungry if they didn't pick up the pace.

Although Alfred had been one of the first to finish running, and therefore eating, he took longer to shower so he was one of the latter ones to head back to the cabin. It was already dark as he passed the training field, although he could see perfectly fine with the bright moon shining down. Titans never moved at night, but the dark also made it much harder for people to travel as well whether within the walls or outside of them—which was why he was surprised to see a pair of horses come galloping in, two people in deep green cloaks astride them.

Gilbert came out to greet them as they got off their horses. "Any luck?" he asked. The bright light streaming from Gilbert's cabin shadowed all three figures so Alfred couldn't see them.

"Still nothing. At this rate, Rose—"

"Have the Vargas brothers come?" Another voice interrupted the first. "Aren't they cute?" He spoke with a slight lisp and a Hispanic accent.

"Shut up, you bloody idiot," the first voice said and this time Alfred knew where he'd heard it before—he just couldn't believe it.

Slowly, he inched toward the horses and riders. Both the riders were dressed in the uniforms and 3DMG of the Scouting Legion, and as they stepped into the light pooling from Gilbert's open office door, Alfred felt his heart jump.

Standing next to the Hispanic man and Gilbert, was a man—slightly thinner and older looking than the last time Alfred had seen him, but Alfred would recognize those thick eyebrows and deep green eyes anywhere.

"Arthur…"

All three men whirled around at Alfred's voice.

"Get back to your cabin, rookie," Gilbert ordered.

Alfred ignored him, unable to tear his eyes away.

"Arthur, you're alive," he said. It was impossible. He'd seen Arthur die right in front of him.

Arthur stared impassively back at him. "Who are you?" he asked.

* * *

idk like tbc maybe


End file.
